Songs for the End of the World

Summary

"In these dark days, Saleema Nawaz dares to write of hope. Songs for the End of the World is a loving, vivid, tenderly felt novel about men, women, and a possible apocalypse. I couldn't put it down." (Sean Michaels, author of Us Conductors and The Wagers) National Best Seller Named a Book of the Year by the Globe and Mail, Quill & Quire, 49th Shelf, and a Book You Should Read by Maclean's and Chatelaine. An immersive, deeply engaging, and hopeful novel about the power of human connection in a time of crisis, as the bonds of love, family, and duty are tested by an impending pandemic. How quickly he'd forgotten a fundamental truth: The closer you got to the heart of a calamity, the more resilience there was to be found. This is the story of a handful of people who find themselves living through an unfolding catastrophe. Elliot is a first responder in New York, a man running from past failures and struggling to do the right thing. Emma is a pregnant singer preparing to headline a benefit concert for victims of the outbreak - all while questioning what kind of world her child is coming into. Owen is the author of a best-selling plague novel with eerie similarities to the real-life pandemic. As fact and fiction begin to blur, he must decide whether his lifelong instinct for self-preservation has been worth the cost. As the novel moves back and forth in time, we discover these characters' ties to one another- and to those whose lives intersect with theirs - in an extraordinary web of connection and community that reveals none of us is ever truly alone. Linking them all is the mystery of the so-called ARAMIS Girl, a woman at the first infection site whose unknown identity and whereabouts cause a furor. Written and revised between 2013 and 2019, and brilliantly told by an unforgettable chorus of voices, Saleema Nawaz's glittering novel is a moving and hopeful meditation on what we owe to ourselves and to each other. It reminds us that disaster can bring out the best in people - and that coming together may be what saves us in the end.

©2020 Saleema Nawaz (P)2020 Penguin Random House Canada